1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in an interior material for an automotive vehicle as a decorative ember, such as a variety of garnishes for covering a clearance between a front windshield glass and a side window glass or a clearance between a ceiling and a door, more particularly to an improved structure of the garnishes having a sufficiently high stiffness to prevent the garnishes from making its resonance vibration and/or getting out of its position during running of the vehicle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, an interior material called a garnish is used at the passenger compartment side of the vehicle body of an automotive vehicle (particularly, a passenger car) in order to cover a clearance between a ceiling and a door or a clearance between a front windshield glass and a side door glass. This interior material is mainly intended to decorate the upper part of the passenger compartment and used as a design part for covering the above clearance. An example of the interior material or garnish is a front pillar garnish P1 for covering the passenger compartment side of a front pillar P2 formed between a front windshield glass P3 and a side door glass P4 as shown in FIG. 7. The front pillar includes an inner panel and an outer panel which are combined at their flange sections by point welding such as spot welding. The interior material or pillar garnish is formed of ABS resin or polypropylene resin and includes a main body section which is integrally provided with an installation section P5 formed at the back side surface thereof. The installation section is a clip member which is to be thrust into a hole or groove in the inner panel of the front pillar, so that the pillar garnish is installed in position.
The main body section functions to cover the front pillar. The surface of the main body section may be covered with a skin material (not shown) as occasion demands in order to improve design effects. The skin material is a flocked plastic sheet or fabric. A seal member P6 made of rubber is disposed to cover the clearance between the pillar garnish and the front pillar and a welded section of the inner and outer panels for the purpose of trimming an end section of the pillar garnish at the side exposed to the eyes of a vehicle passenger. Additionally, the pillar garnish is provided at its backside surface with reinforcement ribs for the purpose of improving rigidity of the pillar garnish itself, such as flexural rigidity, torsional rigidity, rigidity under heating, and the like.
However, drawbacks have been encountered in the above conventional interior material or pillar garnish. That is to say, the reinforcement ribs of the pillar garnish serve as fixed ends in a resonance vibration system and therefore the main body section of the pillar garnish makes its resonance vibration under vibration and noise of the vehicle body during vehicle running and/or vibration due to wind whistling noise from the outside of the passenger compartment, so that the pillar garnish becomes a new vibration noise generating source. Accordingly, the noise and vibration characteristics inside the passenger compartment is degraded thereby obstructing clear conversation of passengers inside the passenger compartment.
Additionally, there is the possibility that the conventional pillar garnish is shifted in position and got out of its position or otherwise dented upon interference with the head or the hand of the passenger when the passenger gets on or off the vehicle, thereby degrading the inherent decorative function of the pillar garnish.